


some wretched piece of art

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Multi, OT5 Friendship, Self Harm, one direction - Freeform, zianourry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is hazy and blurred and faded and when he discovers something that isn’t, he clings to it, clings desperately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some wretched piece of art

**Author's Note:**

> once again written for an anon prompt on tumblr. i quite like how this one turned out, relatively, idk?
> 
> prompt: harry self harms… the boys find out.
> 
> disclaimer: i own nothing but my laptop
> 
> trigger warning, obviously

Harry’s happy with his life, he really is.

He’s just not _happy_ , that’s all.

He’s got a life the larger part of the people his age – and younger and older people, as well – can wish for. He’s got a bank account stuffed with money and three cars on his name and fans all over the world and four good mates to share all of it with, but.

But, maybe there’s a kind of people who aren’t meant to be happy. Or they are, but there’s, like – a manufacturing defect that slipped in somewhere, or a virus settling itself inside him with tiny barbs. And he knows, Harry knows he _should_ be happy because who in their right mind wouldn’t be? There are people that do have a reason to be miserable and still smile through the day, and yet here Harry is, barely able to lift up the corners of his mouth without it feeling forced.

He does, though. He does try to smile, and it works – and when it doesn’t, they blame it on the stress or on exhaustion or they just don’t think really about it. But they’re still watching, all of them, all the time – they’re watching, yet they see so little it’s almost funny.

And it’s not bad, at first – at first even _he_ blames it on the stress or the exhaustion, but it’s heaping up and snowballing down down down the hill and _down_ and eventually Harry finds himself unable to go back up again.

The thing is, he can’t cope with it, can’t handle it like any person would. He’s not _allowed_ to be moody or not talk to anyone all day long, he’s not _allowed_ to not smile when people wave or when cameras flash, he’s not _allowed_ to have a bad day or a bad week or perhaps a bad month. He’s got to suck it up and run forwards, walk on, when all he wants to do is to just _stay_ , sometimes. Stay in the moment and let time stand still.

It’s all a rush, his life, and sometimes he thinks it’ll only be a few hazy seconds and blurred memories when it’s over. _Everything_ is hazy and blurred and faded and when he discovers something that isn’t, he clings to it, clings desperately.

It starts with a slip of a razor when he shaves. It’s an accident because he’s hurrying – when isn’t he? – and followed by a muttered curse. Harry grabs a few sheets of toilet paper to dab up the blood, but when he looks in the mirror –

It’s fascinating how the bathroom is white and his skin is pale and the light is shrill and then there’s _red red red_ , like it’s the only thing in the room that’s alive, the only thing breathing. Red drips down his jaw and splatters in the sink, forming a beautiful silky structure in the water.

Harry doesn’t dab it up, the blood – he watches it dry.

(He’s late at the interview that day.)

* * *

It escalates quickly after that. Harry knows it’s not healthy – he’s not stupid, you know – and he knows it’s probably addicting, too, but he couldn’t cope, and now he does. _This_ he chooses, _this_ he can control, _this_ is not hazy or blurred or faded at all. It’s not pale or dull or bland, it has colour, it’s the brightest red he’s ever seen and it’s _alive_ , alive like he wishes he was.

He pries the blades out of his razor and at night he takes a shower and slices his wrist and brushes his teeth, just like that, and goes to sleep.

It doesn’t make him happier, but it’s something, right?

But he knows it’s not healthy, he does, so he hides it – it’s a just a secret, one more secret on the stack. He wears stringy bracelets, insists they look cool, wears long sleeves, hides the blades in his wallet because no one would look there anyway. When it gets warmer he gives his wrists a break and cuts his thighs, but it’s not quite as satisfying. It’s harder to admire, too.

One day, they’re on a boat. It’s in Australia, and it’s _hot_ , and there hasn’t been a drop of red on his wrists for maybe two weeks, and Harry’s _burning_ , so swimming it is. They change into swimming trunks, all five of them, in the tiny cabin, squeezed together and playfully pushing one another and laughing.

Harry thinks no one notices them, the angry lines on his skin, when he swiftly swaps his outfit for shorts. He thinks no one does.

When he dives in the water it stings, because it’s salty and there are four new lines today. He thinks no one notices his face scrunching up slightly because of it. No one does, really.

He’s drying up on his towel, and the sun is burning but this time it’s bearable, with drops of water vaporizing on his skin. His swimming trunk are clinging to his thighs uncomfortably and he pulls at them and adjusts them and thinks no one notices. Why would they?

It all goes to shit when he wakes up and realises he’s been napping and when he feels hands grabbing his arm and _fuck_ , fuck. Shit.

(It’s not even the new cuts that give him away, it’s not even those that still hurt, it’s not even the blazing red ones, it’s the pale pink faded ones that have become like everything else. Iit’s the ones that he hasn’t paid attention to for fucking _days_.)

“Harry, what’s this?”

He wants to pull back his arm, hide it against his stomach and deny everything and make it so that this never happened, but Louis, Louis who is holding on tightly just below his elbow won’t let him.

“Stop.”

And Harry stops.

“Tell me.”

But that he doesn’t do, he can’t do it – maybe he even wants to, he doesn’t know, but he can’t.

“Tell me or I’ll call the boys, Harry.”

Harry flinches and wants to shake his head but all he does is answering Louis’s piercing gaze. It’s blue, blue that’s not pale or dull or bland at all, and how hasn’t he noticed this in so long? Shocked blue and worried blue and firm, firm blue.

“Fine. Zayn?” he calls loudly, “Zayn? Can you come over for a sec? And get Liam and Niall to leave their fishing rods for a bit, and bring them.”

Zayn looks up from his phone, watches them, nods, goes.

Panic chokes up Harry’s throat, and suddenly he’s pleading. “No, no, Lou – Louis, you can’t tell them. Okay? You can’t tell them, please?”

But Louis’s gaze shifts down, down from his eyes to his collarbones to his shoulder to his arm to his wrist, the wrist he’s still holding, the wrist with thin white and sometimes pink lines all over it like some wretched piece of art.

The gaze is making Harry uncomfortable, he feel suffocated, feels – scared?

“What’s going on, Lou?” It’s Liam, with Niall and Zayn trailing behind. Of course Liam is first, because, _Liam_.

Louis lifts his arm and lifts Harry’s along, moves it towards Liam, lets him see. “Look.”

And Liam looks, and Zayn and Niall look as well, and Louis looks some more. They’re all _looking_ at him, at it, and Harry just watches the sky yet sees nothing, nothing at all.

“What have you done, Harry?” Zayn asks him softly, and he’s glad, _glad_ for the softness of his words because he wouldn’t be able to handle anything else, no pity or accusations or disgust.

“I.”

He. It’s just. He doesn’t know what he’s done. What has he done? Why would he do it? He doesn’t know, doesn’t know anything, except that he did and it felt good enough to keep doing it, so he did.

“I – don’t know.”

He can barely remember now how red the relief looked amidst all the pastel coloured haste, and he twitches because if he were alone right now he’d run to the bathroom and find a razor, but he can’t. He all but _aches_ for the bleak blade in his skin and in his veins, but doesn’t quite – if he did there’d be no need for more pain, would there? So it’s just longing, longing for the ache and the sting and the rush and colour. He longs to colour his world red.

But instead his world is now cerulean and bistre and azure and chestnut and somehow, it’s nice as well.

“I needed. I needed to feel it. You know?”

Four heads nod right away even though they _don’t_ know – and thank god, Harry thinks, but he’ll explain, he’ll try to explain.

“We’ve been, like – _rushing_. We’ve been rushing for years now, yeah? We’ve never really had a break, we _can’t_ get a break from this. Even if we do, we don’t. They’re always watching, everyone is – the whole world is watching us, or it feels like it, and we do what we’re told because it’s the right thing to do. And that’s fine, it really is. It’s just.” His voice falters, but he scrapes his throat and yes, he’s brave enough to continue. “We go along with it, we go along with everything. We don’t control our lives, not the major stuff, the important stuff.”

“But this,” Louis whispers, and he’s tracing the pattern on Harry’s skin, “This you do?”

“Yes. I mean. I think? I used to, but now I don’t really know anymore.”

“It’s not healthy, Harry,” Liam says, “It’s not good for you.”

“I know.”

“It needs to stop.”

“I know.”

“Good. That’s – that’s good.”

And maybe Harry _wants_ it to stop now, because – quite frankly – he’s had enough. It wouldn’t get better, he’d still be as miserable as he was before and perhaps even more so, but this – this wasn’t doing him any good, and no matter how good it _felt_ , he knew that.

“We’ll help you, alright, buddy? We’ll help,” Niall promises.

They’re not empty words, they’re filled – with colour? They’re sharp and defined and real.

Louis kisses Harry’s wrist and Zayn pulls Harry’s legs on his lap and starts drawing patterns on his legs with his fingertips and Liam  sits down beside him and wraps a strong arm around his waist. And Niall, Niall just smiles at him.

“We’ll help you. Okay?”

It’s not just Harry anymore, they’re carrying this burden with all five of them now, and they’re stronger this way. And maybe everyone comes into this world alone and maybe everyone leaves alone as well, but we can find people to spend the mean time with, find people to link up or hearts to with chains  of – of what, actually?

Chains of happiness and chains of sorrow, of love and hate and pain and luck and sometimes those chains may be dull, and other times they may sharp as glass and really really colourful.

And those, Harry thinks, are the best.

Later, they throw his razors away and don’t let him shave unless someone is with him. They gasp and Niall may have let out a few tears when they discover the ravage that are his thighs, and Liam cleanses and disinfects them carefully. They encourage him and motivate him and they’re not angry when he slips up and cuts himself with a shard of a mug he broke. And when he goes a year without cutting, Louis orders him a cake covered with strawberries.

It’s not easy, none of it is. There’s days that he all but breaks down because he can’t take it, none of it, but he’s not carrying his burden alone anymore, and that makes all the difference in the world.

It’s not easy, but it gets better. And when it gets better, the world moves in high definition and there’s colour everywhere and there are four hearts to share that with, too.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: lewdis
> 
> did you like it or not please do tell?


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